


Between Straight Lines

by FyrMaiden



Category: Glee
Genre: Coming Out, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-19
Updated: 2015-07-19
Packaged: 2018-04-10 04:18:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4376945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FyrMaiden/pseuds/FyrMaiden
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Blaine is 13 years old, and terrified to tell his best friend that he's gay. So he does it by text and prepares for the worst.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Between Straight Lines

**Author's Note:**

> Based on [this post](http://gaywrites.org/post/103282930781/icymi-in-which-a-13-year-old-boy-comes-out-to-his), and a vague prompt to fic it.

Sam Evans plops down on the seat next to him, grins that wide easy smile he has, and says, “Suzy let me touch her boobs.” He sighs and his eyes are full of stars, and Blaine tries hard to summon the correct response. He’s been listening to the way boys talk about Suzy, who is fourteen and whose bra they can see through the flimsy material of her summer shirts. He thinks she’s pretty enough - she has beautiful hair, and she wears pinafore skirts that he thinks look really smart with her bobby socks - but he hasn’t yet mustered the enthusiasm for her boobs that he knows he’s supposed to have. He likes Sam, though. He likes Sam a lot, and he wants Sam to like him back, so he nods and grins his own wide, charming smile.

“Yeah?” he says, and wonders what it would be like to be the actual recipient of Sam Evans’ undivided attention. What it would be like to have those hands on his skin. He feels the blush the floods hot in his cheeks, and laughs when Sam bumps his shoulder with his own and presses a fruit rollup into his hand.

“Yeah,” Sam nods. “Like, over her shirt? But still.”

Blaine doesn’t say anything at all.

But he’d let Sam put his hands on him.

He sighs softly and chews his roll up and he listens as Sam waxes lyrical about the taste of her chapstick, and he imagines what Sam’s chapstick would taste like, and what it would be to find out.

What it would be to actually say he’d like to know.

Blaine is 13, and he’s gay, and he’s terrified of anyone knowing.

*

There are a lot of near misses, times when he almost says it and then can’t. He feels the words jam in his throat, and joins in with the boys when they talk about girls, or he does when he can. There’s a lot of boasting and bravado, and Blaine laughs just enough for his lack of contribution to fly beneath the radar.

The way they feel about girls is, he knows, the way he feels about boys. About Sam, and about Doug Ross on the TV when he was little, and about Adam Levine and Tom Hardy and -

One of the boys brings a Hot 100 list into school with him. They pour over it over lunch, make lewd comments and suggestions. Blaine sees Sam watching him, and he smiles so that Sam smiles back. Sam says, “Hey, do you want to go someplace else?” Blaine nods, and they end up trading Star Wars jokes on the bleachers, just the two of them.

If Blaine were a girl, it’d be a date, or whatever the equivalent is. He knows Sam wouldn’t think twice about holding his hand, if that were the case.

He’s not a girl, though, and Sam’s not like him, so he keeps the pining of his heart in a box in his chest.

He nearly says the words when they chat some evenings, after they’ve done their homework and their parents let them play games over the ‘net. Sam chats easily, and Blaine listens to the sound of his voice, makes encouraging noises when they’re necessary, makes observations when they’re relevant, and feels the words crowding on his tongue. ‘Hey, Sam,’ they whisper, insidious, loud in the silence, ‘You know how you think about Suzy. That’s - that’s how I think about you. Don’t hate me, man.’

Instead he says, “Zombie on your right.”

Sam’s his friend. His best friend. And he’s read enough horror stories on the internet to know that he can’t say anything.

Or shouldn’t, at least.

He knows enough to know that boys like him are poison. Unsafe. He likes Sam too much for that.

*

He tells his mom first. It’s a trial run. He’s scared, his voice small, his posture smaller, and she only says that she loves him, asks him if there’s anyone special, and shakes his head as he tries not to cry. There are so many feelings crammed into his head that he feels like they’re fizzing out of his fingertips.

“Does anyone else know?” she asks, and he shakes his head again. He hasn’t told anyone. Who would he tell? She pours him juice and sits with him on the couch, her fingers gentle with his meticulously styled hair, waits for him to cry himself out and rest sleepy and relaxed against her side.

“You should tell Sam at least,” she says quietly, and Blaine freezes momentarily and then shakes his head.

“What if he hates me?”

His mom’s voice is a smile, and she squeezes his shoulder. “No one could hate you, Blainey,” she says. “Give him a little more credit.”

Still. It seems a lot, to say the words out loud to someone who could hurt him -

And then he thinks, he doesn’t have to say them. He could type them instead.

*

It’s a Saturday afternoon when he does it, when he takes a deep breath to bolster himself. His hands are shaking so much he drops his phone twice, but he finally gets the message onto the screen.

To Sam: Hey. I need to tell you something. It’s a secret, though. You can’t tell anyone.

He wants to turn his phone off, then. To put it down and walk away. To get his bike from the garage and ride clean across town and forget about this ridiculous idea. He puts it on silent and tucks it under his pillow, covers his face with his hands and tries to remember how normal people breathe. He puts his mom’s yoga exercises to use, concentrates on the air on his skin and the noises he can hear beyond the open window of his bedroom. On birdsong and summer breeze and the faint noise of traffic.

It’s shattered by the rumble buzz of a text that reverberates through his entire bed, closing his throat entirely. He tells himself to ignore it, to leave it, to go downstairs and watch soap operas with his mom until this feeling passes, but his hands have a mind of their own.

From Sam: Hey, man. What’s up? Do you need me to call you?

No.

To Sam: No. Um. I need - I want to tell you that I’m - Sam, this is bad. I don’t know how - The way you feel about girls? That’s kinda how I feel about boys. And I’m scared you’ll hate me for it.

Pause.

To Sam: Like - it’s weird. I know it’s weird. But like, we’ve been friends a while, and I don’t - just - don’t hate me Sam? Please.

To Blaine, it feels like the seconds stretch infinitesimally, but Sam’s reply is fast.

From Sam: Hey, man, no. That’s cool. You’re awesome and I love you, and I’m glad you told me, dude. There’s no shame. You’re gay and you’re my bro and my best friend. Nothing to be embarrassed about, B.

Blaine huffs out a laugh as the weight in his chest lessens slightly.

To Sam: I’ve wanted to tell you months and I didn’t know how.

From Sam: So wait though - all the blushing about Suzy’s boobs?

Blaine is laughing when he tucks his phone back under his pillow and heads downstairs.

*

Monday afternoon, Sam walks with Blaine back to his house in silence. Blaine can see on his face that Sam is thinking about something. He deep in concentration, and Blaine doesn’t like to disturb him. Instead, he sneaks sidelong glances at him, and thinks about kissing him, and then stops himself from thinking about kissing him, because it’s not really fair to Sam, if that’s even how this attraction thing works. He is attracted to him, though, to his kindness and his generosity of spirit, and his laugh and how much he just seems to enjoy his company…

He’s thinking all of those thoughts when Sam envelopes him in a hug that presses their bodies together, Sam’s hands firm on his back as Blaine’s reflexively come up behind his shoulders, and he smiles into Sam’s shoulder at the contact.

It’s not everything he’d hope for for himself, some day, but it’s confirmation at least that Sam isn’t scared of him, isn’t scared of catching whatever he has.

And at 13, that’s kind of enough.


End file.
